Mark Zuckerberg in a Modern Mitchill v. Lath?

Friend of the blog, Miriam Cherry (pictured) is quoted in this story about a spat between Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and a former neighbor.  The story seems much creepier than the classic icehouse case, Mitchill v. Lath.   Here, plaintiff Mircea Voskerician claims he offered to sell his house to Zuckerberg after pointing out to Zuckerberg that Voskerician was planning to build a large house that overlooked Zuckerberg’s master bedroom.  Voskerician alleges that he sold the property to Zuckerberg at a significant discount in return for an oral promise that Zuckerberg would introduce Voskerician, a real estate developer, to Zuckerberg’s Silicon Valley contacts.  

Voskerician alleges that Zuckerberg has not honored his end of the deal.  Zuckerberg seems to be denying there was any such deal.  So the interesting contracts question is whether the parol evidence rule will permit introduction of Voskerician’s evidence of the oral promise.  Noting that California is quite permissive in the admission of parol evidence, Professor Cherry suggests that Voskerician will be permitted to introduce the evidence.  

If the newspaper account cited above is accurate, it is hard to imagine how Zuckerberg’s introduction would have helped Mr. Voskerician.  It might run something like this: “Hey there, Captain of Virtual Industry!  Let me introduce you to this man, here, who was almost my backyard neighbor.  He threatened to do a Rear Window number on me unless I bought him out.  Would you like to do some business with him?”